SpaceX says it has successfully completed the last major test between a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft and the company’s next historic astronaut.
Right on schedule, the Falcon 9 Booster B1061, the one-time fly, the Crew Dragon Capsule Crew from Crew, which has been proven, and the new Falcon upper stage on Friday, April 16, to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Launch Complex 39A rolled, and the last major began. steps for SpaceX’s second operational astronaut launch. The roll-out was smoothly executed and captured in detail by NASA and SpaceX photographers, and the rocket was brought vertically later that day and attached to the launch pad.
Less than 24 hours later, the fully integrated Falcon 9 was loaded with supercooled liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and finally fired up its nine first-stage Merlin 1D engines – a procedure virtually identical to a normal launch flow . All the systems thus fully checked and cleared for flight, SpaceX and NASA went over with a ‘dry dress rehearsal’ early Sunday.
Just as Saturday’s static fire repeated almost every rocket-related aspect of the launch, Sunday’s ‘dry dress’ served a similar role for the human elements of the mission – an international group of astronauts and the SpaceX and NASA teams. which prepares them for the flight. For Crew-2, Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon will transport Japanese (JAXA) astronauts Akihiko Hoshide, European (ESA) astronauts Thomas Pesquet and NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur.
These four astronauts will fly on Falcon 9 booster B1061, which is already responsible for the launch of Crew Dragon’s operational debut in November 2020, making Crew-2 the first time in history that astronauts will fly on a flight-proof liquid rocket amplifier and a flight-proof private rocket of any kind.
(Quite literally) on top of that, they also ride in the Crew Dragon capsule that is responsible for enabling the United States’ first orbital human spaceflight less than a year ago. Dragon C206 successfully launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS) and returned to Earth flawlessly in late 2020, with the first crew of US spaceflight since the Space Shuttle’s earlier retirement in July 2011.
This means that Crew-2 Crew Dragon C206 will make the first spacecraft capsule in history to launch astronauts more than once – a true historic achievement, but only the latest in a long line of successful unmanned Dragon reuse during the past four years. That NASA – a famous risk-averse space agency – is at all willing to allow his astronauts to fly on a flying dragon or Falcon 9 booster is impressive at all and was considered a very unlikely outcome only a few years ago.
For NASA to allow SpaceX to act both achievements of unprecedented crew rocket and spacecraft reuse on Dragon’s third human spaceflight ever is nothing but the most sonorous endorsement and affirmation of the technical expertise of the enterprise that the space agency can ever offer. Thanks to NASA’s flexibility and seemingly unlimited confidence in SpaceX, the company was able to speed up its space launch to avoid major delays that hinder the other partner of the commercial crew program – Boeing – from disrupting NASA’s presence on the ISS.
Falcon 9 will not launch Crew-2 earlier than (NET) 06:11 EDT (10:11 UTC) on Thursday, April 22nd.
